Black February: Message of solidarity from some people of the ZAD (Zone A Défendre) and elsewhere in France, an occupied area against an international airport and metropolisation project.
With pleasure, we heard of the reactions of solidarity against the evictions at Athens in December and January: United States, India, England, Canada, Australia, Japan, Chile… and also the numerous actions and demonstrations throughout Greece.
Saturday January 19th 2013, Solidarity action took place in Zagreb in support of these spaces: Villa Amalias, Skaramanga, Radio 98FM (Greece), SJZ, LIZ (Germany), the ZAD (France) and the Assentamento Milton Santos (Brazil). Wagenburg Atlantide.
DIFFERENT PLACES – SAME BATTLE!
Stop threats, fascist attacks and evictions!
ReciKLAONICA squat, Zagreb, Croatia http://reciklaonica.blogspot.com/,
dear beloved friends of all squats and self-organised spaces,
we are absolutely impressed by the 10000+ people that have been on the streets last saturday in athens and other cities[1], showing their solidarity with all squats and self-organised spaces, with the 92 prisoners of the evicted and re-squatted Villa Amalias[2], the evicted Skaramanga squat[3] and the evicted pirate radio 98FM.. massive! [Read More]
On Saturday, after 3 weeks of evictions, we were more than 30000 to re-occupy the ZAD. As soon as the demonstration arrived, 5 pre-assembled structures started to get built: a meeting-room of 80m², a kitchen house, 2 dorms, a toilet and bath block and a workshop. On Monday, the work is continuing. Thanks to a sum of ingeniosity, mutualised know-hows and endless human chains to bring the tons of planks, as well as cross beams, metal sheets and straw needed for the work, the construction showed rapid progress. The achievement is breathtaking and can only leave large smiles on the faces. In order to celebrate that, and inaugurate, a cocktail is announced, this monday, at 17:00 on the building site. We would like to remind that these new collective buildings are meant to become a crossing point for all opponents and a headquarter to organise the resistance to the airport construction. [Read More]
October 2012, Notre dames des Landes, France.
Chris leans forward, her long fingers play with the dial of the car radio “I’m trying to find 107.7 FM“ … a burst of Classical music, a fragment of cheesy pop. “ Ah ! Here we go ! I think I’ve got it ?” The plastic pitch of a corporate jingle pierces the speakers : “Radio Vinci Autoroute : This is the weather forecast for the west central region…happy driving to you all. Traffic info next.” Chris smiles.
The narrow winding road is lined with thick hedgerows. Out of the darkness the ghostly outline of an owl cuts across our headlights. We dip down into a wooded valley, the radio signal starts to splinter. The well-spoken female voice fractures into static, words tune in and out and then another kind of sound weaves itself into the airwaves. We rise out of the wood onto a plateau, the rogue signal gets clearer, for a while two disturbingly different voices scramble together – the slick manicured predictable sounds of Radio Vinci wrestles with something much more alive, something rawer – a fleshier frequency.
“ The cops have left the Zone for the night…good riddance… Yeah ! Keep it up everyone ! ……” There is a moment of silence, we hear breathing, then a scream into the microphone “This is Radio Klaxon…Klac Klac Klac ! ”We feel her emotion radiate through the radio waves “ It’s nine thirty five.” she laughs and puts a record on, passionate Flamenco guitar pumps into the car.
We have entered La ZAD (Zone A Défendre) – Europe’s largest postcapitalist protest camp – a kind of rural occupy on the eastern edge of Brittany, half and hour’s drive from the city of Nantes. [Read More]
Here we go, we’re on!!
The reoccupation demo will be on the 17 November!
We are already appealing for communal kitchens, marquees, musicians, batucudas, hut kits, materials, tools, tractors… looking forward for the reoccupation.
All enquiries to: reclaimthezad@@@riseup…net
Some occupants of the ZAD and supporting collectives, who won’t give up. [Read More]
We live in the Rohanne Forest. Over the last two years the many people who lived and passed by here built seven high tree houses and a beautiful three storey collective house. On Thursday 19th October the police came with bulldozers and destroyed and removed the house.
Starting the next day, and with lots of motivated helpers, we built a new kitchen six metres up in the trees, and a new communal sleeping area a bit higher. On Tuesday 30th October and Wednesday 31st October they returned with bulldozers and cherry pickers to destroy the two newly finished cabins, plus all of the seven high tree houses. [Read More]
Story of the assaults and looting by the forces of capitalist destruction. Written thanks to the testimony of many friends.
*Le Sabot* – Tuesday,
We woke up at 5:00am and had coffee together. The cops showed up by the Paquelais road around 7:00am at daybreak. We got the info that the cops had attacked the south barricade. They moved without the usual three warnings, they spent thirty seconds at the burning barricade before getting some paint-eggs in their faces. They secured the whole road from the Far Ouezt to Sabot. Clashes occured at the first barricades of the Sabot. Cops managed to bypass the barricades through the fields and make us move back by copiously spraying tear gas in our faces. Sixty of us charged the cops. An exchange of various colourful projectiles and colorful shots against their tear gas. Cops and officials are forced to retreat, suffocated by their own tear gas, those big assholes. We spend all the afternoon in a tense face off.
[Read More]
From tuesday morning (16th of october), the ZAD has been invaded and occupied 24 hours a day by hundreds of policemen. They are putting down, step by step, the occupied houses and huts. They destroy and take them away, brick by brick, out of the area to prevent us rebuilding or resisting.
Places and gardens still occupied are regularly harassed, covered with tear gas, trampled… Police try to prevent us gathering and having meetings. From tuesday, occupying people and people who joined us in the area answered back with barricades, by blocking the roads the cops use, reoccupations, throwing things, fire, insult and sarcasm… For four days now, under the rain, hundreds of people defend the area whatever it takes, against the police, and plan to stay there. Demonstrations, actions take place every night in Nantes, and other towns. And it’s not over. [Read More]
The ZAD is an aeroport protest site in the west of France about 15 miles north of Nantes. The aeroport project was first proposed over forty years ago and has faced constant local resistance ever since. The project is in the hands of the multinational company Vinci, who also provide us with such « services » as prisons, motorways and nuclear power stations. It is the particular pet project of Jean Marc Ayrault, the former mayor of Nantes and current Prime Minister of France. In 2009 the area hosted a climate camp, since when the empty houses, fields and forests have been gradually filling up with people disgusted enough by the idea of this project to stay and resist. The reasons for staying are as diverse as the people but the occupiers are united by an idea that fighting capitalism is not just theoretical but something to live in practice every day. [Read More]
In this autumn of 2012, the opposition to the Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport project is entering a delicate phase. The response which it may elicit from outside the area directly affected will be the deciding factor for the future of this battle.
To create a Deferred Development Zone, ZAD, (land set aside for major development), to compulsory purchase and demolish homes and then to certify the project as a ‘d’utilité publique’, DUP, (declaration of public interest) before even starting the initial survey work, constitutes a grand scam under the guise of Democratic Policy All this has already been done. [Read More]
Press release sent October 17th at 23:30
We live here, we’ll stay here!
After two days of resistance and solidarity, only seven houses and one plot were evicted at the ZAD, a threatened area meant to make place to an airport in Notre-Dame-des-Landes. Everywhere police forces met determinated opponents, inhabitants refusing to leave their houses, their roofs. Demonstrations. direct actions took place around several locations, roads we barricaded, activists keeping joining the ZAD area, etc…
Since hours, opponents are defending several plots, the Far West, the Sabot, a cultivable land back in use since May 2011. Right now, the Sabot in drowned under a cloud of tear gas, with a drumming samba band. Outside the ZAD, many solidarity actions took place, such a demonstration in front of the main state building in Nantes tonight.
Contrary to what was announced by the highest state representative of the region tuesday morning, the area is far from being empty. Around 20 houses remain occupied, this is even not including house owners, renters and farmers still living in the area. The pressure and acts from the police, such as the destruction by fire from one wood hut, without checking if it was still occupied, won’t silent dissent. [Read More]
